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Some CD's or DVD's have personal or confidential information on them. Destruction of the discs is necessary for security reasons. If you have CD's or DVD's to destroy, then this article will help you.

Steps

Method1

Breakage and mutilation

1

Fold and bust. Wrap the discs with plastic wrap and then fold it until it breaks.

2

Shred the discs with a disc shredder.

3

Cut the discs. You can use a pair of scissors, but be careful as the foil will flake.

4

Break the discs. Wrap the discs with a towel and use a kick or a hammer to destroy the disc. The towel is used to protect you.

5

Cut the discs with a knife.

6

Center punch the discs. Punch at least 12 holes on the discs.

Method2

Heat application

1

Microwave the discs. Place the disc into a microwave and set it for 5-10 seconds, or until you see sparks. The microwave cannot be used for food after that.

Always use adult supervision when doing this step.

2

Use a blow torch to melt the discs. Do in a safe area using proper safety gear. The ground on which the CDs sit should be inflammable, such as concrete.

Method3

Wiping data

1

Erase the discs with the computer, if the disc is rewritable and the computer has a CD-RW drive.

Method4

Destroying the surface

1

Cover the disc with duct tape, then rip it off. This does not work on all discs.

2

Sand the discs. Use a belt sander on the top side of the disc. This should be done in an easy-to-clean area.

3

Wipe with acetone. Soak a cotton pad in pure acetone, then wipe the bottom of the disc with it. It should become frosted and unreadable.

Community Q&A

I want to destroy a disc and hide the evidence. How do I do it without anyone realizing it was me?

Denneisk

Top Answerer

Snap the disc using your hands while nobody is around and put it somewhere in your outside garbage bin or your local dumpster. If you can't do that, get a lighter and burn it along with paper to mask it.

Perhaps if someone put sensitive personal information on the disc, like passwords, documents containing bank records, etc, they would need to destroy it. You wouldn't want to just throw it out, as someone could find it and go through it.

Article Info

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 41 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has also been viewed 367,699 times.